Carina

  The divine residence of the Undying Pheonix was amazing. Created by Steel Swamp Sorin, the monster deity the Sky Lord—now one of the more powerful independent gods—had hunted down to meet the requirements for advancing his classes to God rank, it was a marvel of magical engineering. Containing a subspace dominated by Samsara Fire Trees, it could block out most forms of external sensing, and it had a fully active defense system completely attuned to its previous master, one that would make Carina completely terrified of ever entering if the Undying Phoenix wasn’t long dead.

  Once the number one god under the Radiant Behemoth, the Undying Pheonix had been the queen of all phoenixes in the Prime Material and the ruler and judge of the afterlife for all monster kind, her daughter with an A rank phoenix also one of the Prime Material’s more powerful gods, and she had been an absolute nightmare to kill.

  Carina had been one of the six gods who worked together to end the Undying Pheonix’s life, and only she, the Lady of Hellwater, and another of the messenger gods, Riminon, the Sword of Judgement, had survived.

  They’d never found her residence, however, or any of the treasures the Undying Phoenix had accumulated over the many years she’d been a dominant force, and now Carina knew why.

  The goddess’s residence had been hidden in the middle of nowhere in another universe owned by the Primordial Humans, the Crystal Explosion Universe, and no one had found it for over forty billion years.

  Then, however, three billion years ago, a random C rank had chanced upon it and had not known what it was, thinking it was just a natural demiplane and not even looking for secret rooms as a result, completely oblivious to just how valuable even a random leaf was from one of the trees. He’d recorded its location down before dying of natural causes, his belongings passed down to his descendants. And they then sold the diary containing the residence’s location to a random merchant. That merchant sold the diary to another merchant as part of a bulk purchase. And this second merchant sold the diary to a third merchant in the Prime Material as a historical text about the Crystal Explosion Universe, the diary containing details about the C rank’s travels.

  Perival, in one of his wanderings, had then read the book, quickly buying it once he realized just what a demiplane containing fiery trees likely was, and then the merchant god had sat on the information for two more billion years, unwilling to risk exposing the residence’s location to the Primordial Humans.

  With the Primordial Humans busy hunting down the Yin Yang Sage’s descendants, however, it was a perfect time to check the residence out, and, as Carina had agreed to provide protection to the merchant for excursions when he felt he needed it for the small price of a twelfth of any resulting wealth, he’d brought her along.

  And, given the residence’s power system was obviously still turned on, they were going to make so much money.

  Moving to the center of the forest, where they assumed the entrance to other areas of the residence could be found, they searched for a few minutes before Carina discovered a small hill that seemed dissimilar from the others, the space warping of the demiplane slightly different around it, and there Perival found the entrance to a separate part of the demiplane, activating a formation to open up a large hole at the top of the hill, right under the third largest of the trees in the forest.

  “This seems like the type of entrance a bird would use.” Perival turned to look at her. “Should we jump down?”

  “Sure.” Carina called up her defensive skill, wrapping her power of water around herself. “But let me go first.” Then she spread her wings and jumped down into the hole.

  There was a bit of space warping, Carina feeling the hole could lead to at least three different locations depending on some sort of input she wasn’t sure of, probably some way of flaring her aura, but she didn’t care, just allowing the hole to take her to the default location, and what she found there when she fell through the ceiling shocked her.

  It was a 40 meter by 40 meter throne room with large red stone columns in the corners leading up to a ceiling also 40 meters high. On one end was a huge doorway, roughly 20 meters tall, which led to a hallway and likely the rest of the residence, and on the other was a large bird perch, obviously designed for a particularly large bird, one with a wingspan of at least 12 meters. But what would have normally attracted Carina’s attention the most were the tapestries on the walls and the carpet on the ground, all made of Living Flame Thread, a material that was almost a physical manifestation of fire, and all depicting images of a phoenix guiding monsters to the afterlife.

  Just those tapestries alone, each a dao guide filled with the Undying Phoenix’s Laws, was worth a small fortune.

  Carina couldn’t focus on the tapestries, however, as she was way too worried about the two women, one man, and one statue in the room.

  To her left when looking at the giant bird perch was a beautiful woman with golden eyes and long semi-translucent black and purple hair, the Mistress of Oaths and Deception, or possibly just an illusion of the woman. It was hard to tell. Behind Carina was an equally handsome man, one with semi-translucent shoulder length dark blue hair and bright orange eyes, the Heavenly Spark Soul King, wearing his azure armor, draconic wings, and holding his large violet sword. And to the right of the bird perch was a statue of the Yin Yang Sage—depicting her as she’d appeared back when Carina had helped slaughter her family, short with pale skin the same shade as Carina’s own, bright blue eyes, and curly red hair—the statue obviously having a link to the Heavenly Spark Soul King, the Yin Yang Sage herself seemingly looking out of the statue’s eyes.

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  The scariest person in the room, however, was not the godslayer, not the godslayer’s wife, and not the soul of their godslaying ancestor. No, that honor belonged to the human looking woman wearing a simple red sundress sitting on the bird perch, her pale legs and bare feet hanging over the perch’s edge and swinging slightly, her long braided red and black hair hanging over her right shoulder, and her golden eyes locked onto Carina like a bird of pray as she smiled.

  “Hello, Little Liar, it’s been a long time.”

  The woman, like the Heavenly Spark Soul King and the Mistress of Oaths and Deception, felt like a G rank, Carina completely unable to read her power, but, like the Heavenly Spark Soul King and the Mistress of Oaths and Deception, Carina could tell the woman wasn’t human, even if all her organs matched. Instead, she was a phoenix. And a phoenix with that hairstyle, sitting in that location, and referring to Carina by that nickname could only be one person, even if her human form looked a lot more like the Mistress of Oaths and Deception than the form Carina remembered.

  Carina’s thoughts began to race and she quickly bowed.

  “Hello, Madam Immortalia. I’m so sorry to arrive in your residence uninvited.”

  The woman, who Carina was 90% sure was the actual goddess and not a trick of some kind, smiled. “Did you at least bring a gift?”

  Carina continued to think rapidly. Back when the monster court had been active, it had been customary to bring a gift when visiting anyone of higher status, but that didn’t matter. The Undying Phoenix had joined the Heavenly Spark Soul King and his wife. What did that change? And, more important, could Carina escape.

  In a fraction of a second, Carina scanned the room, and found it was sealed by two different artifacts. One was what she’d expected, the residence itself, but that sealing only blocked her from flying back through the hole she’d entered from, not entering into the hallway behind the Heavenly Spark Soul King, the hallway that almost certainly didn’t lead to another exit going by what she knew of the type of nests phoenixes usually preferred. But the other? The second seal in the room came from some artifact hidden by the Heavenly Spark Soul King’s armor, and it created a seal blocking Carina from attacking anyone in the room.

  It was powered by the Heavenly Spark Soul King himself, however, and, judging by the power of the seal, it had to be a God rank artifact.

  The Heavenly Spark Soul King, without the power of vengeful souls, could power God rank artifacts!

  He somehow had God rank energy as a B rank!

  Carina didn’t have time to be shocked, however. How did her new knowledge of the Heavenly Spark Soul King’s true level of power change things?

  Carina turned slightly to the statue of the Yin Yang Sage.

  If the Heavenly Spark Soul King had the power of a god, it meant he was almost certainly not a subordinate of the Undying Phoenix, but an ally. And this meant she had a gift for the Undying Phoenix that might let her live.

  She quickly turned back to the phoenix and bowed lower. “It’s not with me, Madam, but I do have a gift you might find interesting.”

  “Oh.” One of the phoenix’s eyebrows raised, likely not having been expecting an answer. “What is it?”

  “The corpse of the Yin Yang Sage.”

  The phoenix’s expression changed to a slight smile. Carina could sense nothing from the Yin Yang Sage’s statue. And the Mistress of Oaths and Deception’s expression didn’t change at all. But the Heavenly Spark Soul King took his eyes off her, looking to the statue and then his wife, and he seemed thoughtful.

  “It’s hidden, though. In the hands of another god. And only I know which one.” Carina took a deep breath. “I’ll make an oath to tell you who has it if you allow me to leave with my soul intact.”

  “Oh.” The phoenix smiled warmly. “That is a good move.”

  Then her smile turned predatory. “Xara wanted you tortured a bit before we kill you, but now she’s probably changed her mind.”

  The phoenix turned to the Mistress of Oaths and Deception, a questioning expression on her face, and the Mistress of Oaths and Deception nodded. Then the true ruler of the United Federation of Planets pulled out a jeweled necklace from under her dress, transformed it into a long glaive, and started walking forward.

  Right at that moment Carina felt all her contracts with Perival break, as if she were the one to violate them, a common combat tactic of the Mistress of Oaths and Deception—one that seemed to have as a prerequisite killing the original other side of the contract and taking on their identity—and her soul began to shackle itself. Given Perival was—or more accurately had been—a god, with the same level of power as herself, there was nothing she could do to stop the effect, and, a second later, she was no more powerful than a normal B rank.

  The Mistress of Oaths and Deception entered into the seal powered by her husband and stabbed the glaive covered with the power of the divine roles of the Reaper, the Messenger, and the Ruler into Carina’s chest, Carina able to do nothing in front of the woman’s multiple divine empowerment skills and powerful domain.

  But, as she died, she tried to think of where she’d gone wrong. Sure, Perival had obviously already been killed, the Heavenly Spark Soul King’s energy quality likely meaning his combat power was far higher than he’d revealed to the Prime Material, so she’d obviously been doomed as soon as she’d entered the Undying Phoenix’s former residence, but that didn’t explain why they killed her when they were obviously interested in the Yin Yang Sage’s corpse.

  Did they have some way to question her after she was dead?

  That would require either God rank charm skills or mind reading abilities on a level not even the elder gods could achieve.

  Carina looked into the Mistress of Oaths and Deception’s golden eyes as her insides were repeatedly destroyed until her regeneration could no longer fix the damage her opponent’s energy was causing inside her body, energy that was completely bypassing the normal defenses of her soul and that included parts of Perival’s divine power along with that of five other gods. And then the answer clicked inside her head.

  The Prime Material’s gods had been too focused on the Heavenly Spark Soul King. The Mistress of Oaths and Deception was the more terrifying member of the United Federation of Planets’ royal couple.

  And both were probably even more dangerous in the long run than the seemingly revived Undying Phoenix.

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